Claimer: My Blog, My POV

Occasionally, I will mention my job, my public service activities, and other aspects of my life to offer my readers a better perspective on where I'm coming from. But to be clear:

"The views that I express represent my own opinions, based on my own education and experience, not the opinions of any other entity, party, or group to which I belong. I give these opinions in my individual capacity, as a private citizen, and as someone who gives a good gosh darn about his community, his country, and the truth."

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Wind Turbines Bring Noise, Sleepless Nights in Maine

Cheryl Lindgren was excited when the three wind turbines down the road began turning in November, but within days her excitement turned to disbelief. The sound at her house, a half-mile or so away, wasn't what she had expected. As she sat reading in her quiet living room, she could detect a repetitive "whump, whump" coming from outside.

"I can feel this sound," she recalled thinking. "It's going right through me. I thought, 'Is this what's it's going to be like for the rest of my life?'"

Dedicated two months ago with great fanfare, the Fox Islands Wind Project is producing plenty of power, but also, a sense of shock among some neighbors. They say the noise, which varies with wind speed and direction, ranges from mildly annoying to so intrusive that it disturbs their sleep. And they say they lament losing the subtle silence they cherish living in the middle of Penobscot Bay -- the muffled crash of surf on the ledges and the whisper of falling snow [Tux Turkel, "Turbines Turn into Headache for Vinalhaven," Portland Press Herald, 2010.01.24].

Noise pollution can disrupt a community or an ecosystem, just as smog or chemicals dumped in groundwater can. Wind power will make some problems go away (like dependence on carbon-emitting fuel sources that will disappear within 1500 years... or 86 years... or less!). But, like any energy system, wind power will promote its own forms of entropy with which we will have to contend.

9 comments:

"Wind power will make some problems go away (like dependence on carbon-emitting fuel sources that will disappear within 1500 years... or 86 years... or less!)."

So why should the government makes us stop using the cheaper sources of energy now? Once the supplies of fossil fuels causes their prices to rise enough, other sources of energy will "naturally" become preferred. I thought you hippy types like doing things the natural way, and not artificially.

Perhaps we shold back off using "cheap" (i.e., cheap for the extractors and burners who don't pay the full cost of environmental damage) energy now for the same reason we shouldn't eat all the rations before the other folks climb in the lifeboat: we need to conserve those energy resources so our grandkids have more energy options. Some of us don't think counting on the Rapture is a sustainable energy policy.

This shouldn't be a shock to you corey, didn't you judge enough policy debate rounds last year to know the damage that wind turbines cause? Granted, they don't lead to Nuke War - we'll, some students try to think they do - but there is a lot of arguments out there against them - that's why instead of wind turbines a lot of companies are looking at other options such as MARS (not the planet) check it out here http://www.magenn.com/

Face it, there is nothing that humans do that you and your environmental extremist cohorts find acceptable. So what is your solution:

a) kill all humans, or

b) have the UN ban all sex, except for same sex. If a women is found pregnant, force an abortion, take DNA from the dead baby, search the UN database for its father, and have his penus surgically removed.